The invention relates to a positioning device with which a package or parcel in a predetermined movement path or a positionally fixed position can be made ready in such a way that it is aligned in accordance with one, two or three space axes at right angles to one another with respect to a reference plane, reference point or a base.
In at least one of the space axes, the parcel can have an irregular or regular rounded or angular shape, particularly an external shape, e.g. triangular, rectangular, square, etc. Furthermore, at least on placing on a surface area the parcel can be substantially flexurally rigid and at right angles to the surface area substantially incompressible, but parallel to the surface area it is not shear-resistant, but instead deformable, such as is e.g. the case with a parcel formed from a plurality of equally large sheet layers superimposed in edge-flush manner in a stack, which can be moved against one another parallel to their planes or away from one another at right angles to their planes.
In the state compressed as a result of the weight force of the sheet layers, the parcel forms a strictly rectangularly bounded parallelepiped, which can be very dimensionally stiff, although its individual layers have thicknesses of less than 0.1 or 0.2 mm and in the case of paper or paper-like materials has a much higher flexibility than e.g. metallic materials with roughly the same dimensions.
The parcel is in particular aligned for a following working or processing, e.g. it can be aligned with respect to a packing station, in which in a precisely predetermined position it is brought together with a still substantially spread out, flexible packing wrapper and the latter is then placed around the parcel. This can e.g. take place in that the parcel is aligned between walls arranged in box-like manner and its four outsides at right angles to a base face and at right angles and parallel to one another can slide on the wall insides.